Obama, Clinton rustle up support in Wyoming

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in Wyoming Friday, wrangling last-minute votes before Saturday's caucuses.

Clinton, speaking at a town rally at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, criticized Obama's campaign speeches -- and said the country doesn't have any time to waste.

"What you heard from me in this campaign is very specific. I know that there's a difference between speeches and solutions, and I want you to know what I will do if given the great honor of serving you as your president, because I want you to hold me accountable," she said. "I don't want there to be any mistakes here. I don't want there to be any false impressions. I don't think we have any time to waste."

Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting in Casper, criticized Clinton's 2002 vote on Iraq. Watch him speak at the Casper rally »

"I will bring this war to an end in 2009, so don't be confused ... when Sen. Clinton is not willing to acknowledge that she voted for war," he said. "I don't want to play politics on this issue, because she doesn't have standing to question my position on this issue."

Wyoming is not typically a stop for Democrats looking for delegates in order to clinch the nomination, but because of the delegate deadlock this year, the numbers could make a difference.

With just more than 600 delegates left at stake in the Democratic presidential race, every remaining contest is seen as crucial to Clinton and Obama.

The Clinton campaign dispatched former President Bill Clinton to the state to drum up support.

So far, no polling has been conducted in the state, although Obama has held the advantage in most caucus contests to date.

The Wyoming party will divvy up 12 delegates based on the caucus results.

The two candidates are separated by fewer than 100 delegates, CNN estimates, with Obama leading Clinton 1,520 to 1,424.

"Seriously, I never imagined when I took this job that we would see the day when the two front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination would hold events in Wyoming on the eve of our county caucuses," Wyoming Democratic Party spokesman Bill Luckett wrote on the state party's Web site Thursday.

"I think there's a reasonable chance we'll get our 15 minutes in the national spotlight when the deal goes down on Saturday."

The two campaigns Thursday showed they were ready to use their funds to battle for every delegate as they planned events in states that, like Wyoming, rarely show up on the Democrats' political radar. Watch the candidates discuss the upcoming contests »

On Thursday, Obama's campaign announced it had raised $55 million in February, setting a record for political fundraising in one month.

The amount outpaces the $35 million Clinton raised over the same period.

Obama set the previous record in January when he raised $36 million.

The campaign said 727,972 donors contributed to the campaign in February. More than half of them were first-time contributors.

A majority of the money, $45 million, was raised online, the campaign said. More than 90 percent of the donations were under $100, and more than half were under $25.

Less than $1 million of the funds raised in February can only be used if Obama receives his party's nomination, the campaign said. All the rest may go toward campaigning in the primary season.

Clinton and Obama's battle for the Democratic presidential nomination took on new energy this week after Clinton's comeback victories in Ohio and Texas Tuesday.

The Clinton campaign has been raising $3 million a day since her victories Tuesday, a campaign adviser said.

Meanwhile, both campaigns found themselves embroiled in name-calling Thursday. Watch Jack Cafferty's take on whether the candidates should make negative attacks »

One of Obama's top foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University, resigned from her position in the campaign after calling Clinton a "monster," the Illinois senator's campaign announced.

"With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an adviser to the Obama campaign effective today," Power said in a statement issued by the campaign. "Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Sen. Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign.

"And I extend my deepest apologies to Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months."

The Obama campaign said the decision was Power's, and stressed that "she was an adviser, not a paid staffer."

"She made the decision to resign and we accepted," said communications director Robert Gibbs.

The decision to resign came shortly after The Scotsman newspaper published an article in which she made the characterization -- a comment she immediately tried to retract -- and suggested the New York senator is trying to deceive voters.

"She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything," Power was quoted as saying.

"You just look at her and think, 'ergh,' " Power also said. "But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

Power also said the Obama campaign "f***** up in Ohio." Clinton beat Obama by 10 percentage points in Ohio Tuesday.

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win," Power said.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton distanced the campaign from the remarks, saying in a statement that Obama "decries such characterizations which have no place in this campaign."

The interview came the same day a top Clinton adviser compared Obama's recent actions to those of independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who prosecuted the Clintons while Bill Clinton was in the White House in the 1990s.

"After a campaign in which many of the questions that voters had in the closing days centered on concerns that they had over his state of preparedness to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he has chosen instead of addressing those issues to attack Sen. Clinton," Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson said on a conference call with reporters Thursday morning.

"I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president." E-mail to a friend

CNN's Alexander Mooney, Rebecca Sinderbrand and Jonathan Helman contributed to this report.

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